Micron to buy back up to $10 billion of shares

(Reuters) - Micron Technology Inc said on Monday it would repurchase up to $10 billion of its shares, or about 16 percent of the company's market value, making it the memory chipmaker's biggest ever buyback. The company's shares have nearly doubled in the last 12 months. They were up 4.3 percent at $57.89 in extended trading. The move follows the company's newly announced plans to return at least 50 percent of free cash flow to stockholders starting next year, Micron said. Separately, the company announced a deal with Intel Corp to produce and ship the world's highest-density 3D NAND flash memory chip. Micron, which has a market value of about $62 billion, also raised its third-quarter profit and revenue forecast earlier on Monday, citing healthy industry conditions. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Shounak Dasgupta)